I don't see how this could be applied for personal use (even if it could be mass produced you'd likely be unable to move, just stick; and even if you could move you'd wear out quickly -- how long can you hang by your finger tips).

But the robotic applications could be cool. Of course my mind went straight to something boring: imagine little 1 pound robots that could scurry up the sides of skyscrapers cleaning windows.

Do you know how strong you'd have to be? And those gloves won't do it. Go hang from a bar for five minutes to see what it would be like. No try to hang at something other than a fully extended straight arm for what you'd need to be able to walk that way.

And then, let's say you this stuff on at four contact points (two gloves and two boots). Let's say you weigh 200 pounds. To allow easy walking about these contact points have to be adhesive enough to allow you to be moving two contact points at a time (one leg and one hand).

That means that each contact point has to be able to be sufficiently adhering to hold 100 pounds. This means that, at minimum, to remove a hand from the wall or ceiling so as to move it, you'll need to pull with 50 pounds of pressure to unstick your hand. If you want it to be adhesive enough (for safety reasons) that only one contact point then 150 pounds of pull will be needed to "lift" any hand or foot.

Unless I am misthinking the physics of it all. But unless they also perfect a light exo-skeleton for the added strength needed, I don't see normal people being able to do any of this.

From what I understand, that material would support the weight no problem. And I have tried the experiment you just suggested. I've climbed a ladder. I know that's not exactly the same, but if the gloves/boots were designed correctly, it shouldn't be much harder.

A ladder is not remotely the same thing. You're hardly ever supporting your own weight when on a ladder. But climbing a wall or ceiling, you'd be continuously supporting your entire body weight with your arms and legs.

And my point wasn't that the tape wouldn't be strong enough, but that if it were strong enough, it would be too strong for easy movement.

Imagine a boot with a fat circular cluster of those sticky things on the toe. Dude, it would be the same thing. And instead of sticking your fingers in tiny cracks, all the weight would be distributed across your hands and wrists.

"A piece of tape one centimetre square holds around 100 million of these artificial setae and could support a weight of one kilogram."

"Andre Geim and colleagues at the UK's Manchester University say covering a person's hand with the material would be enough to let them stick to the ceiling. The tape could be detached from the surface by simply peeling it slowly away from one side."

So, you wouldn't have to pull with fifty pounds force to get the glove unstuck. You just slowly peel it away.

I weight about 95kg, let's round that up to 100 and say that, at any given moment, I would need 100 cm2 of Spidey Material on the glass skyscraper I'm climbing up. So say 50 cm2 per boot/glove. I don't think that's unreasonable. That's about a foot and a half square. I'm imagining something like a rigid ski boot with a metal frisbee stuck on the front with Spidey Stuff on it. And gloves kind of like rollerblading gloves, with the same frisbees on them. It would work. I don't think it would be too hard.